New blood doesn’t ask how things have always been done; it demands to know why they must only be done one way at all. When seasoned hands failed to steady the Sunrisers Hyderabad ship, it was the restless, untested duo – debutants Praful Hinge and Sakib Hussain, who shared eight wickets between them – who steered SRH to a 57-run win over the Rajasthan Royals at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium here on Monday.
When handed the daunting task of taming the JaiSurya phenomenon, Praful came through spectacularly. No bowler in the history of IPL had scalped three in the opening over – until the 24-year-old pacer from Vidarbha came knocking.
After a single to get the 217-run chase going, Yashasvi Jaiswal could only watch helplessly as Praful blazed through the in-form, on-song Royals’ top order with irreverence. Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Dhruv Jurel and Lhuan-dre Pretorius walked back shell-shocked for ducks.
Sakib took care of Jaiswal before Praful returned to send Riyan Parag trudging back to the dugout and took flight à la Shoaib Akhtar.
Ravindra Jadeja and Donovan Ferreira arrested the rapid slide with a risk-free century stand, helped generously by an opponent that took its foot off the brakes. Just when the pair threatened to take Royals towards an unlikely win, Sakib returned to outfox Ferreira with a beautifully-disguised back of the length slow ball.
Two deliveries later, Jadeja followed and the resistance soon collapsed, as Sunrisers held their nerve to hand the Royals their first defeat of the season.
SRH’s 216 was, in hindsight, easier on the cardiac muscles. After Jofra Archer removed Abhishek Sharma for a golden duck and Travis Head perished after riding his luck, Kishan did bulk of the heavy lifting with a raucous home crowd swaying to his every move.
Just 19 balls after reaching his 19th IPL fifty, Kishan surged into the nineties, hammering Archer for three consecutive boundaries. A brief floodlight failure broke momentum, with Royals using it to remove the 27-year-old and Heinrich Klaasen.
Nitish Kumar Reddy then proved why the No. 5 spot should have never left him, with a brutal 24-run over off Sandeep – the most expensive of the night – pushing Sunrisers to an eventually insurmountable score.
Nothing about this contest unfolded as expected. Fans, regardless of allegiance, arrived bracing for a bruising shootout between two of the league’s most feared batting units.
Instead, they were treated to something else entirely: precision under pressure and nerve over reputation. In the end, it wasn’t pedigree but fearlessness that defined the night, as two unheralded names embodied a generation that doesn’t wait its turn – it takes it.
Published on Apr 13, 2026